a time to hold their hand

It was 7:10 in the morning, I was supposed to be out the door by 7:00 but I decided to make a coffee before the one hour drive to work. I heard a loud bang from upstairs and I assumed it was my sister slamming her bedroom door. I shrugged it off. As I poured hot water into my travel mug, the banging continued and got louder and louder. I thought, what is she doing? I walked to the stairs and heard loud cries that kind of sounded like painful laughter. I thought, maybe she’s laughing at a video or a message someone sent her. But the banging got louder. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw her head moving up and down on the bathroom floor. That’s when I realised what was happening.

The next few minutes was a bit of a blur. And honestly, there’s a selfish part of me that wished I could erase these next few minutes from my memory. I ran the fastest I had ever ran in my life, up the stairs and into the bathroom. I witnessed my sister having her second unprovoked seizure in the span of a month. I’ve seen a lot of horrible things in my life. In fact, I have a degree in nursing so I’ve seen a lot of really medically related scarring, terrifying things. But nothing was as scary as this.

My “nursing” side kicked in. Without thinking, I looked around to remove anything that would have harmed her. She was still twitching but I managed to gently grabbed her wrist and checked her pulse. I observed her mouth to check her airway and she was frothing in the mouth so I tried to move her to her side. She was still in a convulsive state so I couldn’t do much but yell assurances to her, even though I wasn’t sure if she could hear me. I looked for my phone and swore at myself for leaving it downstairs even though every other time in my life, it was permanently attached to my hand. I ran down the stairs and back up in a matter of seconds. Who do I call? I called the one person that this family can fully rely on, my older sister. I know what you’re thinking. I should have just called emergency services. But I was panicking and upset.

Pick up, pick up, I thought. Finally, my older sister picked up. She was at work. She’s a (successful and really really good) nurse. So I knew she’d know exactily what to do. But she couldn’t do anything for my younger sister, who had stopped twitching, but was unconscious, because obviously, she wasn’t physically there and couldn’t assess the situation. But she gave me exactly what I needed. She calmed me down, told me to hang up the phone and call 000. And so I did. After giving them all the information, I sat there on the bathroom floor, held her hand and waited.

I think the last time I held her hand was when I was twelve, helping her cross the road after school to catch the bus. She was seven. It was simpler times then. But life is life and things change. And her and I, we certainly have our differences. But at the same time, we’re both pretty similar. We both try to be independent in our lives, with our own goals and our own paths. We definitely have our own way of dealing with things. And different ways of showing love. But at the end of the day, it’s all the same love. And we all want this love. Most importantly, we all need it.

Timing is such a funny thing. Do you ever have those moments when something unexpectedly happens in your life and you think back on the moments that led you there? If I hadn’t come home so late from dance practice the night before, I would have woken up earlier. And had I woken up earlier or decided not to make coffee before leaving for work, I wouldn’t have been there when it happened. If my afternoon teaching session didn’t get moved to 9am, I would have slept in. It’s times like these that affirms me of God working through our lives.

I started this blog because I believed so avidly in perfect timing – His timing. There is definitely a time for everything. And that day, He called me to hold her hand as I called 000. To hold her hand as she woke up confused. To hold her hand as I assured her she’ll be okay. To hold her hand through this life changing experience.

At one, or many points in our adult lives, we’ll need someone to hold our hand, even when we don’t want it, especially then. What’s stopping you from reaching out?